This walk is great if you want to see along the Emsworth waterfront and around the millpond.
It is particularly nice for an evening or a weekend stroll, and is just long enough to build up the appetite for a meal in one of Emsworth famous eating places, or maybe afterwards as a 'digestif'.
The walk is along made-up paths, so is accessible to wheelchairs and pushchairs, leaving no excuse not to take the whole family along. You may need to be careful if there is a high spring tide, as the bridge does get inundated. |
Itinerary
The walk starts from Emsworth Square.
There is a pay-and-display car park in South Street, or a free car park in Bridge Road (just north of the main Havant Road).
From the square, walk south down South Street towards the harbour.
At the bottom of the road, you come across a small car park on the quay. Pass across this car park and along the pathway that leads out onto the breakwater surrounding the millpond. Walk around the millpond on this breakwater.
What you are walking around is a tidal mill pond that was used to drive the flour mill originally housed in the building that you passed that is now Emsworth Slipper Sailing Club. Tidal mills are common around Chichester Harbour, and worked by letting the millpond fill with the incoming tide and empty on the ebb tide, directing the water though sluices and a mechanism to drive the millstones. The Town Mill as it was called dates back to the 16th century
As you walk down the breakwater, if you look back at the southern foreshore of Emsworth, you will see the remains of the oyster beds that were once the centre of a famous industry in the 19th century.
At the end of the breakwater you will come to Emsworth Sailing Club. Pass behind the club on the footpath and go down onto the path along the foreshore. Follow this path right along in front of the houses until you reach a small bridge that crosses an outlet from some reed beds.
While walking down this path, keep a good lookout for the seabirds that feed along the foreshore. Depending on the time of year you can see all sorts of waders and gulls along this stretch.
After the bridge, the path forks. Keep right to the north of Nore Barn Woods and follow the footpath to the kissing gate. Before the kissing gate, turn south down the western side of the woods until you emerge at the foreshore.
There is a seat where you can rest half way along the walk. The view from here is ever changing with the state of the tides, and there are always seabirds to spot and identify.
Continue on round Nore Barn woods and follow the path as it heads east along the southern edge of the woods until you get back to the small bridge.
If you feel you have had enough at this point, you can walk straight back up Warblington Road, and you will end up in the centre of the village at the top of the millpond. If not...
Walk back along the path on the foreshore back to Emsworth Sailing Club. Behind the Club, instead of returning to the breakwater around the millpond, walk north up Bath Road along the other side of the millpond.
From this side of the millpond you can get a good view of the western edge of the centre of the village. Many of the houses along here were old fisherman's cottages, when the oyster trade was one of the biggest industries in town.
Sadly, in November 1902, the Dean of Winchester died after eating Emsworth oysters at a banquet in Winchester, and in 1903, the Emsworth oysters were banned because of pollution, and the industry effectively came to an end
At the top of the millpond, turn right and then right again into Bridgefoot path. Take the second turning on the left into Nile Street, and you come back to your starting point in Emsworth Square. |
